


Red Eyes at Morning

by aperture_living



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Drama, M/M, Road to Ninja movie references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-28
Updated: 2013-09-04
Packaged: 2017-12-21 16:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/902531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aperture_living/pseuds/aperture_living
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fishing village is eradicated, an inhuman chakra fills the void, and then Sasuke Uchiha appears at the front gates of Konoha, decidedly different. They're connected, but only only teammates know how. (Story takes place after Road to Ninja movie.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, this is a prologue, not so much a chapter. Trust me, the other ones are longer and more in depth; don't let this sway you away from this piece.

Sometimes, a good work-in-progress jutsu had to be tried, tried again.

The first time hadn’t worked, not with the Nine Tails and that girl, but he hadn’t been surprised; it was a prototype at best, designed more for the data than for the actual idea of victory, and he was willing to accept that. 

But now, as he stood beside this offshore small fishing village, the mask barely keeping the smell of salt-water and decaying bait out of his senses, he realized he was looking at it all wrong. Maybe this wasn’t about keeping the jinchuuriki there, he mused as he watched the people move like ants through the streets, ignorant and working in their makeshift colony. Maybe it had never been about that. 

Maybe it was about bringing the other one here.

He wanted to feel guilt over what he was about to do, some part of him craved to shed some sort of remorse, but there was nothing, nothing but static radio silence. The end justified the means, and their sacrifice would be greatly appreciated in the long run, after the dust settled and his plans were finalized.

And then everyone could be happy. Completely. Without reservation.

Nudging the mask up, his hands blurred in a flurry of movement ( _snakerammonkeyboarhorsetiger_ ) before he curled his fingers to his lips and blew fire into this wretched world. It lit the garroutte that he had placed throughout the streets, the smoke lazily wafting into the air, turning darker, darker, darker as a seal created in flame hovered through blocks and blocks of homes, of shops, of lives. Awestruck, the townsfolk stopped and stared, arms full of laundry or boxes or children. 

Bringing a person through ( _create, create, he was creating him, building him this beast, and then he would have one more tail, one more piece of his elusive puzzle_ ) would have cost extensive chakra, but a jinchuuriki? A jinchuuriki demanded a sacrifice, the chakra of young and old, of families. Of a town. 

Obito slammed his palm to the ground, and when the screams ended and the smoke cleared, he was only mildly surprised by the figure-- no, figures. Two. The one in the mask, his black hair spiked up from behind the red and white paint, the fur-topped cloak swaying lightly in the dissipating wind, he had been expecting that. The Uchiha next to him, familiar and yet not, his hand gripping the jinchuuriki’s arm, was a gift. 

A set of eyes and a tailed beast. That was even better than he had hoped for.


	2. Chapter 2

The best part about being a jinchuuriki, Naruto thought, was if the ramen was too hot and burnt his tongue, in a minute he wouldn’t even feel it, anyway.

Sakura had come back from a mission that morning, and although she had rolled her eyes at the prospect of ramen (“Can’t we have something else this time? Why does it always have to be ramen?” “Because it’s tradition! And breaking tradition is bad luck!”), she had met up with him anyway after unpacking her gear and washing the road’s dirt from her shoulders. Naruto talked through mouthfuls of food, eagerly spoke of some of the more juicier pieces of village gossip (“And then I heard that they were going to start crafting colored kunai! I bet I can get some orange ones! Oh! And I heard that another ramen shop was talking about opening, but the competition will be too tough so they backed down! And Kiba and Akamaru did--”); Sakura let him go on because trying to stop him was like trying to stop a cat from being smug: impossible. 

The sun was harsh but welcoming when they emerged from the stand; it caressed skin rather than baked it, the kind of shine that made the village hum with a contented, infectious peace. Naruto thought, _I could get used to this_ , between the weather and company and full stomach, even if one thing was still missing, always missing. 

_I wonder where you are, you fucking bastard._

Blue eyes glanced up and over, watching Sakura running off to wave at Hinata and glare at Ino, a low bickering match that signified that, for the moment, everything was just this side of normal. It was too easy to fall into a lull, to drift away from what was important, what needed to be done; war was on the horizon, and Sasuke was-- 

_gone_

\--not here. Those were things that needed fixing. Changing. And what was Naruto if not a firm believer in chang--

“Naruto. Sakura.”

Both sets of eyes trailed over to the voice, Naruto already starting to smile was he waved his hand enthusiastically back and forth. “Iruka-sensei! You just missed the chance to buy me ramen!”

The look on Iruka’s face made him drop his hand, made the smile fade and fall away. Something was wrong; Naruto could see it from there, could read it in his stare. “The Hokage wants to see you both right away.”

Sakura pulled away from their friends; she could feel their eyes on her back as her and Naruto started walking alongside their old mentor. “Do you know why? Is everything okay?”

“No, not exactly,” he said, voice controlled and working the worry free from it. “Just that it was a mission conference.”

But Naruto was listening as they walked, and caught the murmured rumors from behind hand-covered-mouths. _Fishing village. Death. Missing. Children even_. And he wondered how he could have missed that sort of gossip when they were eating earlier.

_Who the hell would kill children?! What is going on?_

 

 

 

One of Naruto’s most confusing memories was the the day Sasuke stood at the gates of Konoha, dressed in casual clothes and looking just like he belonged there. 

They sat at a round table debriefing about the sudden decimation of a low-income fishing village off the coast (“ _fire and death, the entire thing, we’ve never seen anything like it!_ ”) and the sudden immense spike in a strange chakra located in the area. Suggestions, arguments, desperate accusations sailed; the death count was in the hundreds, men, women, children indiscriminately killed, and there were reasons why the chakra count might and might not have been related. Speculation was a fuel for fiery arguments. Tsunade’s eyes were of stone as she read the report aloud, her voice grave in a way that made Naruto shift uncomfortably in his seat. Something was wrong about the whole thing, something felt off, but he couldn’t place it. 

_I didn’t sleep well. Maybe that’s it. Or I think my milk was expired. Must be. I really need to start checking the expiration dates on that before I have cereal._

“We’ve seen this sort of a chakra spike before, but it doesn’t make sense,” the Hokage said, tossing papers into the middle of the table for the others to read. “Which is why you are being sent out to take a--”

No one interrupted emergency meetings that this particular Hokage put together; it was an unspoken rule after the last two people limped away with scolded pride and wounded ribs. This certain ANBU was either really stupid ( _impossible_ ), or the news was really desperate; she hesitantly slid in and whispered into the hokage’s ear from behind her white and red bird mask, voice low, quick. Tsunade’s expression barely changed through the private exchange, her face was a wall, unreadable, impenetrable, but Sakura saw something, saw some tiny little thing only a progeny would know.

They sat in silence, waiting, her and Naruto, Sai and Kakashi, Shizune off in the corner. The seconds ticked away, and--

“Sasuke Uchiha is being detained at the front gate.”

It was said with the same authority that had been used regarding which teams were going to be sent out on this excavation mission, the same sort of detachment. What anyone else had expected, they weren’t sure; this was an assignment in and of itself, a mission that had come knocking at their own door. The village would be up in arms in a matter of minutes, kunai gripped in eager fists. Handled incorrectly, it could lend itself to civil unrest and vigilantism. Handled correctly, and it could lend itself to a kyuubi going out of control.

The seconds ticked by again, this time interrupted by Sakura’s gasp (and the crackle of leather as her hands curled into fists, ready but unwilling) and the sound of Kakashi shifting a little in his seat. Every eye turned to Naruto (they did, they always did), but his own eyes were just as wide, his face unsure. 

_Sasuke...._

_This is too easy. It’s not right, it can’t be right; this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. He wouldn’t just come back, not unless something major happened. He wouldn’t--_

The urge to crack a joke came and went, running past, but he couldn’t do it; nothing seemed right in this situation. Air was in short supply; his shoulders tense, and he ached to run screaming out of here, to go hunt him down, to punch him in his fucking face while hugging him, and to shove him back and call him an imposter. Sasuke was back, but Sasuke wasn’t ready to come back, not yet, he knew that. So what was he doing at the gates?

_Could he have finally come to his senses?_

_No. Sasuke doesn’t work like that. The bastard doesn’t make anything easy._

Chair legs scraped across the floor and cut through the room as he pushed away from the table, walking towards the door a heartbeat later. He heard Sakura say his name behind him, heard Kakashi draw his breath, and he shook his head. 

“I’ll go see--”

“I’m coming with you,” Sakura cut in, already up, already moving behind him. 

“No, I-”

“Naruto,” she said, her tone controlled, composure set. “He was my teammate, too.”

_And that’s why you can’t come; you talk about him in past tense._

 

 

 

Naruto met them outside the gates, caught between surprise, anger, and protocol at the scene: there were twenty ANBU surrounding a bound Uchiha, who was shoved down onto his knees in a ring of people. Dark eyes looked up at Naruto approaching, staring, challenging, before flickering over his shoulder to catch Sakura behind him, refusing to be brushed off like some liability. Everyone stood still (aside from Sasuke, which irritated Naruto; Sasuke should never be down on his knees, he was better than that), a low whistle of wind the only sound cutting through the heaviness  
.  
The two teammates exchanged a knowing look, before they turned back at Sasuke. “Do you know where you are?”

“Of course, idiot,” the Uchiha snapped. “I’m trying to get into _our_ village, Menma. Why are they--”

But Naruto was already backing away, one step, two, closer to Sakura. There was no way--no way this could be happening. It was impossible. It was utterly impossible. That was just a trick before, with Obito. That--

“...Naruto,” Sakura whispered.

He was wearing those clothes, the one from that fake place, the dark shirt with its collar flipped up high layered over another dark shirt, the Uchiha fan dangling from a necklace. Sasuke. There was a look of betrayal and confusion etched in his eyes, eyes that were looking at Naruto with a request for a little help here, dammit, and what was going on, and why was this happening when he clearly lived here?

_How did he know? How did he get here? He doesn’t exist! He was just a trick from that masked asshole, so why is he here now!?_

Sasuke. But not Sasuke. Not his Sasuke.

Right?

“Blindfold him and take him to interrogation.”

Naruto looked up and behind him, back to where Tsunade had joined them; of course she would, this was important, vital, impossible to ignore. He opened his mouth to tell her it was unnecessary, completely useless; this wasn’t the missing-nin, this wasn’t the traitor, this wasn’t the murderer of Danzo; this was just a boy who couldn’t really exist. Why waste the time, the energy when he wouldn’t really leave anyway?

“You don’t have to do that,” Naruto said, but it was half-hearted. This was Sasuke, but it wasn’t; it was a lie, but it wasn’t.

_But that’s it, isn’t it? He could be a spy from Obito. He isn’t real, Uzumaki. Get a grip._

But he did exist. He was kneeling right here, calling him someone else’s name before they were blindfolding him, making him growl, bare his teeth. “I don’t--”

“Naruto,” Sakura said, the voice of reason, always the voice of reason, “why don’t we go back and check out the reports on that chakra disturbance. We can come back to visit him later.” 

His eyes turned to her, wide, wondering why she would do that, why she would leave him behind to them, but he saw the knowing underneath. He saw her need to talk things out. He didn’t have time to properly respond; he numbly felt the glove around his wrist, dragging him away through the streets, until they both disappeared into the crowd.

 

 

 

“It doesn’t make sense, though.” Sakura paced the length of Naruto’s living room, left to right, right to left, unable to sit down, unable to be deterred. She looked like a hypnotist’s watch. “They weren’t real; none of it was real, so how can he be here?”

The apartment wasn’t exactly clean; he hadn’t been expecting anyone, so a few empty ramen containers were left haphazardly on the table, his shirts (had they passed the sniff-and-it’s-clean test? He couldn’t remember) were tossed on the couch. Naruto wanted to embarrassed, he did, and on another day he might have, but today wasn’t faring well for anything other than abject shock.

So, he didn’t have an answer, not really _. He called me “Menma”. He called me_ \--

“Okay, let’s think about this.” And she kneeled down at his table, finger pushing against the wooden top hard enough to wedge out a few splinters. He could feel her nervousness from there. “We could still be stuck in a genjutsu. Maybe we thought we got out, but we’re really still there?”

Genjutsu. It was possible, wasn’t it? But he didn’t feel the chakra, and he could tell from the tone of her voice that she didn’t either. But wouldn’t it be the best kind, the most distracting kind? Sasuke coming home would keep him and Sakura tied up for days, months, complacent, content. 

Except, _why send the fake Sasuke? Why not send the real bastard? We wouldn’t complain if it was him, not anymore than we normally do; sending that one was just sloppy. So why not just sen_ \--

“Or,” Naruto slowly started, “It’s really the Sasuke from there.” 

She let that hang in the air, just that and the ticking of a nearby clock and the drifting cheerfulness from the village streets below. It couldn’t be. “But--”

“Think about it!”he yelled. He started to get excited, not because he enjoyed the prospect, but because it could be true, he could actually be right about this. “The large chakra that was practically off the charts: what if it was Menma? With the kyuubi powering him, it would make sense! And the entire fishing village: what if it was the kyuubi destroying it?”

Bright eyes widened as she shook her head, slow, a dawning realization coming over her face, slow, like sunrise but so much darker. Heavier. “No, not destroying it: fueling it. Whoever brought them over used the village’s entire chakra to do it.”

Once those words were in the air, they fell silent, feeling the weight of them sinking in, down to the bottom, resting there. All those families, all those people, those kids. Naruto was driving his fist into the floor before he could stop himself, the rage shaking up his arms, standing out in the chords of his neck.> Kids. 

But it was the only idea they had to go on. It made sense, it was the only thing that did, but it still _didn’t_. “Why would they?” Sakura muttered. “It doesn’t make sense why he would waste that much time and ener--”

“For the Nine-Tails,” Naruto said, climbing to his feet to root through his cabinets for nothing, nothing at all, just the act of doing _something_. “If he can’t get me, he can have next best thing. If he could make it real--”

“Then we have to find Menma right away!” Sakura swept to her feet, nudging the table on the way up and making it wobble on uneven legs. He really needed to fix that. “He could be extracting the kyuubi right now!”

Except... _except_...

“We have to take that Sasuke with us,” Naruto said, slamming the cupboard. “He could’ve saw something; there might be some kind of clue.”

_And we all know what “interrogate” really means. He’s innocent, dammit. This was a Sasuke that never left. Why should he suffer for the one that’s here?_

“Naruto.” Her tone was softer, threatening to placate him but careful not to tip completely to that side. “They’re not going to just hand him over, not with the crimes Sasu--the Sasuke we know has committed. They’re going to think he’s lying, or it’s a trick, or--”

“--or he’s crazy.”

Their eyes snapped to each other at the same moment, widening. A good teammate could communicate with just a glance, and after all this time, all these years and hardships, they could do just that, like siblings behind their parents’ back. Crazy. It wouldn’t be a long stretch, not with his history; hell, it was practically expected. 

“You know this is going to be on you, Sakura,” Naruto said, his voice controlled, barely. “You’re going to have to win grandma over with that medical mumbo jumbo; I can’t help you on this.”

But she was smiling, reassuringly, her feet already carrying her to the door. Her eyes held a determination he knew and admired.

“Leave it to me.”

 

 

 

 _Leave it to me_ , she had said, and now, standing at the outside edge of that Sasuke’s cell, she wasn’t exactly sure what she had been thinking. 

At the sound of her footsteps, his head swung to her, and she expected a heated glare or a come hither glance, she wasn’t sure which. In the end, she received neither, not with the seals over his eyes, the paper connecting from temple to temple, keeping them closed and locked down. His hands were bound, more seals dug into the metal shackles, and she could see the few bruises where interrogating fists might have “slipped”. She cursed under her breath.

“Sasuke,” she said, dropping the formalities, the honorific in favor of getting this done; what were honorifics in the place of ex-teammates and people who tried to kill one another anyway? “Do you know who I am?”

She waited for a _Don’t ask stupid questions_ or _Get me out of here_ , but instead got a quiet, “Mm. Sakura.” A pause, then, “The hero’s daughter.”

_So, we were right._

Her heart sank with their suspicions confirmed; she knew how much Naruto had wanted it to really be Sasuke, even if he wouldn’t admit it to himself. She could read him better than he thought, and if she was being honest with herself, hadn’t she wanted the same thing? For Sasuke to finally come home? Her jaw tightened, and though she knew he couldn’t see her, she watched him shift a little as she did. “Why did you come here?”

“Because this is my village.”

 _Don’t, Sakura. You can do this. You can._ But she had never thought, never dreamed those words would come from his lips ( _not him it’s not_ him) again. Taking a deep breath, she calmed her voice, turned it official, used every trick Tsunade taught her over the years. _A ninja is in control of her emotions. Always. You rule them; they do not rule you._

“Do you remember killing Shimura Danzo and Uchiha Itachi?”

Every muscle tensed, she could see it even through the shadows, and she knew when he spoke, his voice would be incredulous. She wasn’t disappointed. “What? I didn’t--”

“It’s fine.” But it was better than fine; it was what she needed because there were ears here, ears everywhere, and they would tell Tsunade before she ever could. They would corroborate her insanity plea, and then they could have him, they could be ( _not a team this wasn’t a team he wasn’t real_ ) on their way to stop the kyuubi’s capture. “Get some rest. I’ll be back soon.”

She started to walk away, her footsteps nearly blocking out the, “You’re still as beautiful as the last time I saw you, Sakura. And just as lonely.”

Sakura traded walking for running, instead.

 

 

 

When they brought Sasuke to them at the hokage’s office, he had a few more bruises and was favoring one leg a little more than the other, but he was in one piece. The seal was still over his eyes, and Sakura watched as Naruto hesitated, knew he probably felt everyone’s expectations on him to see what he would do. She stood at his side, wanting to grab his arm, and--

He walked to Sasuke, stopping only when he was in front him, face to face, and still they watched, waited, holding their breath until he wrapped his arms around their supposedly wayward teammate. One hand even dipped into the black hair, bringing that blinded face to his shoulder to rest.

“Welcome home, you dumbass,” he whispered, and Sakura closed her eyes, hearing the pain, the want in his voice.

_He wants it to be real. More than anything, he wants it to be real._

“Stop being mushy, Menma,” shot back a quiet hiss, and Naruto pulled back, away, his shoulders squared and hard before Tsunade dismissed them all. 

For now, the village had granted the sanity of Uchiha Sasuke into the hands of his former teammates.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Living a lie doesn’t make it any less of a lie._

“So, when is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

It was said with the same irritated growl that Naruto had known from memories and team missions, the kind of tone that got under his skin like a tick that promised infection. The entire walk back to his apartment had him casting little glances at the fake Sasuke, analyzing the way he moved, the way his eyes flickered around, the look on his face as the villagers stopped and stared. One woman had dropped her grocery bags, spilling contents everywhere, fruit rolling to their feet. Naruto, as usual, stopped to help her pick it up.

“Is that--?”

“Um,” and what could he say? _No, not really, it’s a fake but we’re just going to pretend for awhile, okay?_ “Yeah, but the hokage knows. Don’t worry; it’s fine. His chakra is sealed.” Tsunade had made sure of it, slamming it onto the back of each hand before they left. 

The look the woman gave him was unconvinced, and he couldn’t blame her; even without his chakra, Sasuke Uchiha could kill half the villagers in under an hour. 

They stood in Naruto’s apartment now, the two of them awkwardly looking at one another as if to ask _What’s Next?_ , the question that had been inevitably drifted into the air. Naruto didn’t have any answers, real or not. How did someone tell someone else that they weren’t real, that they were nothing more than an anomaly from jutsu that had failed? How was he supposed to explain that he wasn’t the original Sasuke at all, that he was a cheap fake, molded out of who-knows-what?

_But he is real, isn’t he? He’s standing right in front of you, glaring at you like my--the original Sasuke does. How isn’t he real?_

“Shit.” Naruto’s hands ruffled up his hair, frustrated, confused. This wasn’t his expertise, he knew that and Sakura knew it, too; he could tell from how she had looked at him when they arrived to the apartment before she had run off to get some more information about the village that had been destroyed. And now he was left here alone in his dirty home, with Sasuke picking at the shirts that had been strewn everywhere, asking him questions like this, questions that didn’t have easy answers, and--

“Where are your parents?”

Was this question worse? He was pretty sure it was, with the way his heart suddenly ached deep enough to make his hand clutch his chest, gripping it a little as he turned his back to Sasuke and headed towards the kitchen. “Heh, I’ll just get us...” and he trailed off into unintelligible mumbling when he was at the sink. His parents. Why did the bastard have to ask about his parents? Of all the questions to ask, why did he have to ask that one?

_I bet they would know what to do._

and

_I think I liked you better when you were pissed at me and giving me the silent treatment, bastard._

Catching his breath again, he started to emerge from his little culinary sanctuary, then remembered he was supposed to be getting them something to drink? eat? It didn’t matter, really, so he got a couple glasses of water and offered up one to the sudden houseguest. Sasuke (Naruto thought he needed to make another name for him, like Fake-ske or something) picked it up, examined the glass, then wrinkled his nose and set it down. 

“Do you always drink out of glasses you didn’t wash?” he said, tossing the shirts on the floor before taking a seat.

_Oops._

“No, asshole,” Naruto snapped back. “I drink out of the clean ones; you get the dirty ones.” 

The awkward silence drifted down again, and Naruto let his eyes go anywhere, everywhere except to Sasuke. Looking at him hurt, like a dream he had woken up from, bitter and longing. Part of him wanted it to go away, needed it to go away, but part couldn’t bear the thought of giving it up.

_Living a lie doesn’t make it any less of a lie._

“You never answered my question,” came the collected, almost indifferent ( _but it wasn’t, not if you knew where to look underneath, and Naruto did, Naruto always did_ ) tone. “What is going on around here? Where are your parents? Why did you move?”

What kind of lie could he have made for each individual question? _Nothing, mission, time to move out on my own_? And did he want to lie to this Fake-ske when he had no crime committed to him other than suddenly existing? It didn’t seem fair, didn’t seem right.

_If I can’t live in a lie, why should he be forced to? Would I lie to my--the real Sasuke?_

The dark eyes were unwavering, staring, demanding words and answers, and Naruto had none to give him. The water didn’t wet his parched throat at all, and he was fighting against the urge to stare at Sasuke just because he missed doing so and looking away because he didn’t want the weight of this on him. Normally he loved talking, if only so he could hear a voice, any voice, but right now he would have loved to be stricken mute, to be given surprise spontaneous laryngitis.

“You see,” he started, taking a deep breath, “it’s sort of--”

A pounding on the door cut through the start of the hardest explanation he had to make in months, and Naruto was grateful to answer it, ignoring the glare as he did. Sakura. She gave him a fake smile before pushing in, tossing a few bags on the floor with a little sigh. “I managed to get a few maps and wrote down what I could get from the intel that we received. Those are starter packs for the trip: six kunai, water, food, and light medical supplies. We’ll leave before dawn tomorrow.”

Sasuke found his feet, moving to get one of the bags and searched through it. “Where are we going?”

Sakura flashed Naruto a look, stunned and slightly accusatory. _You didn’t tell him?_

_I didn’t know how!_

She cleared her throat and slung her own pack onto her back. “There was a fishing village destroyed a few days ago; we’re going to check it out and see what we can find.”

They waited to see some sort of recognition on his face, a moment of surprise, something, but he only shrugged and went back to the couch. Nothing. No hint. No tell. Just a silence that hung in the air and left them to contemplate just what exactly they were doing after all.

 

 

 

Sakura left a few minutes later after discussing rendezvous points and mission objectives, leaving Naruto to clear his muddled and annoyed head in the shower. The water was mind-numbingly hot, and he half wondered if Sasuke was going to be there when he got out. Sasuke, who always left, always showed his back to Naruto, so why would other-world Sasuke be any different?  
 _  
Because only your Sasuke does that. This one didn’t abandon you._

_How do I know that?_

The flat of his palm found the shower wall as he bowed his head, letting water and hair slip over his face. This was a certain level of confusing hell that made no sense and that he was stumbling through with no end in sight. He wished it would stop.  
 _  
This isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted him home._

When he emerged from the bathroom, he had a towel draped around his shoulders and a pair of shorts; it was late and they were rising early tomorrow, so bed was imminent, necessary. His room had extra blankets and pillows for Sasuke to sleep with, and worn out, he went in to retrieve them, only to find the subject of his perplexing ire sitting on his bed, looking at something in his hand.

“What--”

And then he saw what Sasuke had clutched in his grip, and his question turned to anger, white-hot and immediate. Storming over, he tried to snatch the hitai-ate out of the other’s calloused fingers, tried to ignore the scratch through the middle of the Leaf’s insignia, but Sasuke was quick and jerked it away before he could.. It hurt too much to look at it, and it hurt even more to let it go.

“Don’t touch that!” Naruto’s voice was shaking as he yelled, more teeth than he had reason to edging at the corner of the words. “Who gave you permission to go through my stuff? Don’t you know how to be a good guest?!”

But as usual, Sasuke ignored the outburst, his eyes still on the metal plate, his thumb brushing through that jagged damage. “Why do you have this?” 

_Why do you have this?_

Not _What is this?_ but _Why?_ Naruto could have closed his eyes and pretended this was his Sasuke, his Sasuke asking him why he kept such a foolish thing, what an idiot, complete and utter idiot, did he like to hurt or something? He would have laughed at him, some mocking thing with a few “tch”s thrown in for good measure, his hand on his forehead as he shook his head. _Idiot?_ , he would have said, but it wouldn’t have mattered because he would have been looking Naruto in the eye as he said it.

Instead, he had these calculating eyes staring at him, watching him. Why. 

_It’s none of your business!_ he wanted to say, but instead, “It was the symbol of a promise I made a long time ago. To myself and to someone else.” 

Naruto waited for the question of what the promise was. There was nothing.

“I’ll bring some blankets and pillows out to you in the living room in a few minutes,” he muttered, defeated, exhausted and spent by a day that wouldn’t ever seem to die, stubbornly continuing on and on and on. He watched Sasuke walk by, felt his presence, that chakra he had missed, caught his smell of danger and power and stubborn asshole-ishness, and he closed his eyes.

_I can do it. I can do this. I have to._

For now, Naruto didn’t ask for it back. Maybe it was as much for him as it was for Sasuke; he stopped keeping track anymore.

He set the blankets and pillows outside his door rather than going to deliver them ( _The jerk can come get them himself; it’s what he gets for going through my stuff_ ), and ten minutes later he heard the whisper of footsteps brushing over his floors as the goods were picked up and stolen away. Naruto went to bed shortly after, not seeing Sasuke again until the middle of the night when he was woken up by a nagging bladder. Stumbling out to take a piss, he passed by the living room and in the moonlight, he could see Sasuke sleeping, silver and perfect and imperfect at the same time. 

“Tch,” Naruto hissed and turned to walk away, until he saw the glint in the corner of his eye, that little innocent and insignificant flash of light. Was it...was it what he thought it was? But-- Hm. 

In Sasuke’s white-knuckled grip was that hitai-ate, catching the silver illuminance of the moon over the metal, and sending it back to him, like a secret code for hope,

Naruto stared for as long as his bladder would let him.

It was surprisingly hard to go back to sleep after that.

 

 

When they all stood outside the gates, Naruto tried to hide the bags under his eyes, muttering that he wasn’t a morning person. Sakura crossed her arms and asked how he even became a ninja anyway, which left him sputtering, their banter rehearsed and natural at the same time.

Sasuke only just watched him, knowingly, and said nothing as they set off towards ruins.


	4. Chapter 4

Sakura had knowingly informed them that it was a good two days travel from the village, and that’s if they were running the entire time. Her eyes had shifted to Sasuke as if worried that he might not keep up, but Naruto had snapped that it was fine, they could, they had to; if the village found out they were gone, they would be on them in a heartbeat and he refused to be dragged back before this mission was complete. She had opened her mouth to argue, and if Naruto’s look hadn’t stopped her, Sasuke low growl certainly would have instead.

“I’m not a broken baby,” he snapped. “And stop acting like I’m not here.”

She sighed, out-numbered, out-argued, and kept running, leaping through the trees as if each branch was a diving board. Sasuke’s attitude was reminiscent of old times, something she affectionately remembered, and it was nagging at her. How did Naruto feel? The same way? Was it just as painful?

He wouldn’t admit if it was, though; he wouldn’t dream of telling her, not when she was heavily weighed down with her own emotions on the topic. So for something like this, she might have to bring it out of him on her own. If he gave her half a chance, of course. 

Somehow, she thought he wouldn’t. 

 

 

 

 

Six hours later saw them breaking for lunch, Naruto grabbing eagerly at the rations and practically shoveling it down into his throat without chewing. Sasuke picked at stuff, eating the proteins, leaving the rest, and Sakura watched them both with a mix of motherly concern and animal caution. They didn’t have long and the village might already be out looking for them, but running and using up all their energy wasn’t something they could afford to do, not yet, not this early in the game.

When they would eventually return, they were going to be in for detention, maybe debriefing, lectures, possibly even house arrest. Only their history of loyalty and their teachers would keep them from interrogation, and that was if they were lucky. Yet, none of them questioned if it was worth it; they knew the answer. They knew it before they even set foot outside of the gates.

All the same, Sakura lost her appetite. 

The makeshift camp was cleaned up easily: trash buried, the leaves calculatedly scattered once more to simulate the random chaos of nature. Before setting off again, Sakura pulled out the map, and pouring over it, remarked that in ten miles they were going to have to start heading west. Sasuke unabashedly stared at her the whole time, that way he had back in the illusion; she almost punched him for it.

They had traveled another hour, just one before, before Naruto jumped to the left, narrowly missing a white hand that exploded up from the ground, crashing through grass and leaves, fingers brushing against Naruto’s boot before curling around nothing. 

“Shit!”

Naruto and Sakura’s kunais were out in a flash, a flicker of motion that was caught only by the few errant strands of sunlight that shifted through the leaves. They could see the Zetsus coming, ten at least, unnaturally white as if they were born from the underbelly of a serpent, and the two ninja took a step back in unison, weight shifting behind them to steady their defense. 

“We aren’t here for a fight,” said one Zetsu, his steps silent as he walked forward, avoiding the crackle of foliage. He might have been the leader, but it was impossible to tell when they all looked the same.

“Bullshit!” Naruto shot back, his teeth grinding in anger, in all out rage. “We know you’re after me!”

There was a quip of laughter, short and mocking, before the Akatsuki member cocked his head to the side. “What an ego you have there! But, sorry to disappoint you; I’m here for him.” And his head nodded, not at Naruto, but past him, behind the jinchuuriki.

Him. Sasuke. Sasuke, who had remained with the village. Sasuke, who had not killed his brother. Sasuke, who wasn’t as strong as the one who had left because the drive hadn’t been there. Sasuke. Not their Sasuke, but close enough right now.

Next to him, Naruto heard the leather of Sakura’s glove creaking as she gripped her kunai tighter.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint _you_ , but we’re not giving him up.” Naruto smiled, more smirk than grin, and already two clones were working a Rasengan into his open fist. Behind him, he heard the Uchiha in question pulling out a kunai. “Especially to you!”

There wasn’t anything left to say, not when all the demands had been left on the lines; Naruto preferred action, anyway. He had lost Sasuke before, and while he was still actively working on getting him back, he thought maybe, just maybe if he could save this one from a similar fate then his past failures would be washed away, eroded just a little. So he would protect him even if it cost him his life, and he wouldn’t think twice on it.

Because Sasuke was worth protecting. Even a fake one.

Zetsu laughed, but Naruto saw red, then blue as he crammed his rasengan down the bastard’s throat.

To the left, the land shook as Sakura drove one fist into the ground, earth splintering up like jagged teeth around her. Naruto cheered her on (“Go get ‘em, Sakura! Show ‘em what a ninja from Konoha can really do!”), before another enemy jumped on his back, white spindly arms snaking around him as its feet kicked savagely at the back of his knees. He cursed, loudly, watching as his legs gave out, as the ground came rushing up, and he turned his hand, read--

But the arms let go and the body fell off him, the weight gone with a guttural cry. Over him stood Sasuke, kunai gripped in his fist, wet white skin still hanging off the tip of it. Naruto looked up at him ( _He saved me! Sasuke...protected me?!_ ), before another another hand drove up from the depths of the ground, forcing each one to jump back and separate.

Beneath their feet, the air trembled as Sakura punched through a tree, the brown splinters showering and creaking as the old staple teetered and fell on another Zetsu. This was dangerous; so much noise, so much battle, and the Leaf ninja would come immediately, if ANBU wasn’t already on their tails. They needed to hurry this up and get back to running, or this would be their final stand and the mission would be lost. They had to--

Multiple Narutos filled the space, twenty in all, ten rasengans flashing in fists. She felt the familiar surge of dark chakra, of the well that was the kyuubi, but she didn’t stop to register it; where there had been ten Zetsus, there were close to thirty. Reinforcements.

Her and Naruto could handle it, but Sasuke...

If it was the old Sasuke, maybe she could toss a few poison bombs, but it was too dangerous without knowing his extensive training history where he was. And even so, she wasn’t sure how they would react on something like this freak of nature; who knew what he was immune to. She ducked under a swing, and once low, drove the heel of her hand up, up, up into the Zetsu’s chin, hard enough to break its neck. How many more would come? Another twenty? Would they have time before Konoha arrived? Where was Sasu--

There. Fighting two of them, dodging and slipping behind them, a kunai in each hand cutting into the back of their necks where the spinal column sat so close to the surface. He crippled them with a shower of blood and there was nothing on his face, no surprise, no offense, nothing but that coldness, that coldness she saw once. It was all so hauntingly familiar.

_Something isn’t right._

From his pocket dangled the blue ends of a hitai-ate, trailing with every movement he made. 

_Where did he get that? I didn’t see him with that in the other world. Does Naruto know--?_

It only took one blur of motion, a white tornado to bring her out of her thoughts, and an attack that would have taken out half her face only grazed it instead. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Naruto was producing more and more clones, matching numbers, then overtaking them; Zetsu had to know that if it was a numbers game, he would never win, not against them.

_Of course. So why is he trying to--_

She drew down to the ground, a swing whistling over her head, as her knuckles tore through one of Zetsu’s femurs. 

_They’re stalling us!_

It was as if they heard her because they started to pull back, like a blizzard whose wind changed direction. From her side, she could see Sasuke, not even breathing hard, the kunai still in his grip, and to her right, she heard Naruto yelling, taunting them. 

“Told ya so! You’re going to have to go through me if you want him!”

“Then I guess that is exactly what I’ll have to do.”

All eyes turned up, up, up, to a high branch in one of the trees, but they knew who it was before they even looked. The voice was familiar; it had once harbored a laughable idiotic tone, but like a lightswitch flicked off and now it was only the core, a low menacing thing, a voice with an agenda. Through the shadow of leaves, they could see the ever concealing mask.

“Tch!” Naruto was amped up, the chakra growing, growing; it was a suffocating blanket. “Then come and try, you masked freak! But you’d better come with everything you’ve got because I’m not letting him go this time!”

“Naruto,” she whispered, finally understanding what this was really about to him, how reality was underneath the layer of bravado that was so instinctively him. But it was too late; Obito was coming already, flickering in and out, suddenly closer as his hands worked a fire technique. He was blowing before they could stop him, and in a blur, Naruto was putting a wall of clones between them and the flame, a shield that was cruel, but necessary. 

“Fucking sharingan,” he muttered, more animal than man. “Fucking Madara.”

Obito was at him again, in and out like flickers of ghostly hauntings; his path was hard to follow, near impossible with the naked eye. Shuriken rained from on high, but he was gone after they had dodged. Papertags were tossed, distractions, all these distractions, and they had no choice but to fall for every single one of them or else they would blown up along with it. 

Sakura hated playing defensively. Naruto was even worse at it.

Finally, Obito was close, that red eye so bright in the hovel of that mask. Naruto was already driving a rasengan at him, and Sakura was sailing at him with a fist, a double attack, something he wouldn’t be able to just shake off, no matter how good he was. 

But he did. He did, because they went right through him, passing between his body and coming out the other side. They just barely missed one another with mere centimeters to spare, and by the time they were turning and switching momentum, the air in front of Obito’s mask was already swirling.

“I won’t turn down getting both you and Sasuke at the same time,” he said. “It’s a lucky day for me.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see Naruto’s glare changing, could feel the flux in his chakra, practically suffocated under the weight of the fox coming to the surface. But they weren’t going to have time, they weren’t, she could already feel the pull into whatever dimension this asshole played in. They were screwed, and she had to think, that to find a way to ground them, had to--

Purple bones curled around her and Naruto, gripping them, holding them tight, severing that incessant and impossible tear Obito was trying to make. Her eyes widened as she looked up the fingers, up the arm, watched where it connected to Sasuke, _Sasuke_ , with his Eternal Mangekyou triggered, his lips thinned, his body the epitome of annoyance and frustration. 

“Impossible,” she whispered. 

“Sasuke?” Naruto hissed. “But--but you can’t--how can you--?”

Obito smiled behind his mask, though, ignoring their wonderment, almost not seeming not to care that Sasuke ruined his chance at capturing the Nine Tails. “Finally. Come on back; I have some errands for you to ru--”

The fingers on Susanoo’s hand squeezed slightly. “I’m not done yet.”

“Done with what, Sasuke?!” Naruto screamed, flailing in the violet haunting grip. Somewhere the stammering wonderment had been replaced with vehemence and volume, his stunned shocked replaced with kicking feet. “What are you doing?! You’re not from that other world, are you?! You’re the real Sasuke! What is going on!? What--”

The elder Uchiha sighed, ignoring the jinchuuriki and walking forward. “I don’t have time for you to play house. We have a plan--”

“I said, I’m not done yet.” His hand tightened on the kunai, the threat of Amaterasu on the wind. “I’m not your pet, Madara, and I don’t come when I’m called. I will returned when I’m finished.”

The Akatsuki member seemed ready to argue, to suggest that maybe after everything Sasuke really _was_ just a pet, a game piece, but he shook his head instead. It wasn’t a defeat, but a relinquishing. “You have three days. If you’re not back, I will come for you, even if your task isn’t complete. I don’t have all the time in the world to wait.”

“Tch.”

There was a chuckle, muffled under that hidden visage, before Obito sucked himself into his own vortex, leaving only them and the sound of the forest surrounding them. The dead Zetsus still littered the ground, and they would need to be buried and hidden before the ANBU came through. There wasn’t much time, and with the sunlight starting to trickle away, the woods seeming darker than before, it was just a mat--

“Dammit, you bastard!” Naruto yelled in his default angry volume setting. “You have five seconds to tell us what’s going on, or else I’ll--”

Sakura interrupted him, her voice quieter, her tone heavy and confused, concern and wariness built in at no extra charge.“Sasuke, you--why are you here? What are you--”

But he didn’t say anything, not yet, just turned his eyes towards them, cursed and red, one dripping blood. Genjutsus were so easy for him now, and Naruto fell under easier than Sakura; she struggled for a few seconds before the haze of hypnosis blanketed her as well. When their protests ceased and their yelling quieted, he watched them with a resigned silence.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Naruto. Sakura.” He waited for their sleepy acknowledgement, a _yes?_ in perfect unison. “You’re going to fall asleep as soon as the hand lets you go, just for ten minutes. After that, when you wake up, you won’t remember seeing Madara here in the woods, and you won’t remember me using Susanoo. You won’t question that I’m the Sasuke from the other world. It doesn’t matter.”

Sakura nodded, that pink hair bouncing, but Naruto’s brow furrowed. He was fighting, Sasuke saw it, could feel it. Strange, however, that it wasn’t the genjutsu that was the battleground; it was the suggestion. Stubborn little shit. He drew in close to Naruto, nose to nose with him, and frowned. 

“Naruto, you have to forget that the Sasuke you know is here.”

There was a pause, momentarily, before that brow furrowed again, harder. “C-can’t. Can’t forget...Sasuke. He’s...my goal.”

But the hokage was his goal, wasn’t it? Hadn’t that been the annoying thing he had been spouting off about since they had met, lofty though it may be? So when had it changed? _How_ had it changed?

“Naruto, if you forget it now, you can remember it later.” Fingers grasped that tan chin, fighting the urge to squeeze it. “If you don’t, I’ll rip every memory of me from your stupid head.”

“No, you won’t,” came the quiet, sulking murmur. “Be-because I wouldn’t...wouldn’t let you, asshole.” But the treaty was bartered, and the struggle smoothed. The furrowing brow relaxed, and in that purple grip, he hung limply, loosely.

Practically alone, Sasuke sighed.

 

 

 

 

 

“I can’t believe they used some gas to get away!” Naruto muttered as he heaved the last of the Zetsu’s into a pit they had dug. “You would think that Sakura would have been immune to it or something!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that they used a different strain than I knew!” Grunting, she dragged the tree branches over, laying it over the top, arranging it haphazardly to hide their tracks. “I’m just glad Sasuke was able to get away and guard us while we were out.”

Sasuke looked up at her comment, and smiled, slick and smooth, that flirtatious little thing, before his eyes went to Naruto. Waiting. Waiting for a slip up. Waiting for a crack.

There was nothing but the customary energy that no one could match.

“Come on, guys! We have a fishing village to get to!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to put out a new chapter; between college starting, a sudden move, and then a flood, it's been a little busy in my neck of the woods. I'll try to be more consistent!
> 
> Also, I'm sure that I don't write better fight scenes. They are forever my weak point. ._.


End file.
